Scotch airer easy winch

[Owain]

to differentiate it from the thing in the garden which is called a whirly.

Owain

[Mirabelle]

9 years too late for John Stumbles, but it might help others to know you can buy such a thing here: although, stylish as it is, it costs more than the original drying rack! There’s a good video of it though, which would teach anyone who wanted how it works and so could rig up something similar.

[soup]

Solution looking for a problem. We had a pulley (scotch airer) and I could operate it when I was at Primary school without a winch. Never too heavy for me even at 4' (still not the biggest of chaps (5' 4"). Not especially strong just the pulley didn't need that much strength.

Anything that was heavy enough to need a 60kg winch would probably pull the pulley from the ceiling.

[Mirabelle]

I’m glad you were strong enough as a young person but they do come in different sizes and a large one with a load of wet washing can be hard for an older person especially with arthritis in hands and shoulders. So a solution may be necessary for some, just not you!

[Jim Jackson]

wow posh. Our local DIY shop has/had (not checked recently) all the bits you needed to make such an airer - cast iron thingies for each end, pulleys for roof fixing, sash cord for roping up, and cast tie off point for wall. All parts came to considerably less, though I did buy plain pine lats and varnished then myself. Only had to replace the cord once in the last 32 years, and it gets pretty much daily use.

[Bob Eager]

Pretty well the same here. Ours is 27 years old, and I bought all the parts from one place as a kit, with an extra pulley to re-route the cord slightly:

I have replaced the cord once.

[S Viemeister]

We also re-routed ours with an extra pulley. Haven't yet had to replace the cord, but it's only 23 years old.

[charles]

I moved the one in this house and used new cord (nylon). that was now over

40 years ago.

[soup]

That's just it I wasn't strong, the pulley system of the Pulley has something like a two to one mechanical advantage and could easily be lofted by a six year old (and that was for a family, if for one maybe two it should go up easily even with arthritis).

People with no-arms, living independently, will have much cheaper solutions I would have thought than a £160+ cast iron winch.

[Max Demian]

For that money I would expect it to be electric and Internet-enabled.

[Roger Hayter]

You nowadays have to pay extra to get things *not* Internet enabled.